Electronic apparatus and in particular mobile or portable electronic apparatus may be equipped with integral microphone apparatus or suitable audio inputs for receiving a microphone signal. This permits the capture and processing of suitable audio signals for processing, encoding, storing, or transmitting to further devices. For example cellular telephones may have microphone apparatus configured to generate an audio signal in a format suitable for processing and transmitting via the cellular communications network to a further device, the signal at the further device may then be decoded and passed to a suitable listening apparatus such as a headphone or loudspeaker. Similarly some multimedia devices are equipped with mono or stereo microphone apparatus for audio capture of events for later playback or transmission.